A Walk To Remember On The City Walls of Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik has always been one of the biggest tourist attractions in Europe but of course in recent years the popularity of this old city has increased multifold , thanks to the famous HBO show “Game of Thrones”. Dubrovnik is “King’s Landing” in “Game of Thrones”. Its amazing to see how a city with such rich culture, history, natural beauty and breathtaking views is being visited by tourists from all over the world to see the sites where a fictional TV Series was shot.
Whatever is your reason to visit the “Pearl of Adriatic Sea”, I am sure you will fall in love with this city and may remember the words of George Bernard Shaw :
“those who seek paradise on earth should come to Dubrovnik and find it”
The best thing to do in Dubrovnik is taking a walk on the famous city walls which surround the old town. In fact if your trip to Dubrovnik is too short, just do the walk on city walls and you will not feel that you missed anything. When you walk on the city walls , on one side you see bright blue sea while on the other side you see the red rooftops of old town, giving the view a wonderful contrast and making it all the more beautiful.
The walk on City walls is around 2 kilometers with few stairs to climb up and down. Though the height of the walls reached upto 25 meters , even if you are scared of heights , you do not need to bother. On the land side the thickness of walls is 4 to 6 meters while on the sea facing side its 1.5 to 3 meters. The land side wall is also protected by an additional scarp wall for the purpose of defence against artillery fire. So you are well protected on the walls.
The history of Dubrovnik City walls goes back to middle ages. The walls survived many enemy attacks and natural disasters over centuries but are still standing tall. The Definite Shape of city walls was defined in period between the fall of constantinople and the earthquake in 1667 , also known as “Golden Age of Dubrovnik”.
Dubrovnik City Walls are one of the best maintained walls in the world till date. While it took centuries to build and rebuild them , the people maintain the beauty and purpose of walls even today. No wonder Dubrovnik City Walls is included in UNESCO world heritage list. There are more than 1000 UNESCO world heritage sites today but Dubrovnik City Walls were included in the list in 1979 which makes it one of the first 100 UNESCO world heritage sites.
It’s a well known fact that the city walls have been protecting the old town for centuries but I was amazed to see that even the walls are protected from all sides. There is Tower Minceta in the north. The port is protected by The Fortress Revelin and by the Fortress of Saint John in southeast. The western entrance to the city is protected by Fortress Bokar and the western end of the city is protected by Fortress Lovrijenac. In addition to these structures, the walls are also protected by 12 quadrilateral forts, 2 round towers, 5 bastions and 2 corner towers.
There are many entrances to the City Walls, I suggest taking the entrance from Pile Gate, specially if you want to start the day with walk on the walls. The Walk on City Walls take around 2–3 hours generally but considering many stops for photography and the presence of a cafe at super strategic point the wall , you may take longer time so keep this in mind when you plan the visit.
The ticket for City Walls also include admission in Fort Lovrijenac so do not miss that. After all this is one of the site of “Game of Thrones” tour too.
I had visited Dubrovnik in early June and there were really good number of tourists even at that time. If you are planning a visit in peak summer time, be ready to face huge crowd as this is one of the most popular city amongst tourists. In fact Dubrovnik faced overtourism problem too when over 10,000 visitors bought tickets to walk Dubrovnik’s famous city walls in a single day in august 2016. In the same year, UNESCO threatened to remove Dubrovnik’s World Heritage Site status unless it curbed tourist numbers.
A Few Tips:
- City Walls are open from 8 am to 7.30 pm during summers . During winters the walls close around 3 pm. Check the opening and closing time before you plan visit here. You can actually buy skip-the-line ticket to save a lot of time standing in the long queue.
2. If you are visiting in summers , take the walk on city walls either early morning hours or evening hours. During the day , specially midday the sun is too strong and you can get really tired walking in open , climbing up and down many time. There are around 1000 steps at different points on city walls.
3. Carry water , hat and sunscreen. you will definitely thank me for this advice.
4. There are a few entrance and exit gates on the way so you may decide to exit through any of the gates too but remember once you have exited the walls, you cannot use same ticket to enter again. My suggestion — walk slow , enjoy the view, take good photographs , spend some time in one of the cafes (suggest a café before ending the walk so that you are not in hurry to exit before the walls close the gate) and complete the walk at one go.
